In the Media
Kevin Goldstein Quoted in WSJ Article Discussing the FTC’s Increased Scrutiny of Private-Equity Investors
In the Media
Kevin Goldstein Quoted in WSJ Article Discussing the FTC’s Increased Scrutiny of Private-Equity Investors
September 30, 2021
Winston & Strawn attorney Kevin Goldstein was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article regarding the new U.S. federal antitrust enforcers’ plan to increase scrutiny of the impact of private equity investors in merger reviews. Under new FTC Chair Lina Khan, the FTC is asking new and different questions about proposed acquisitions, antitrust attorneys say. Among those new questions, FTC leadership has specifically prioritized examining ways that investment firms may have different interests than other corporate owners that can distort market incentives to compete.
“Private-equity firms need to anticipate those questions and be ready to answer them,” Kevin noted.
Amid a historic boom in mergers—2,436 merger notifications were filed with antitrust agencies in the first eight months of 2021, more than in a typical year, according to the FTC’s new director of the Bureau of Competition—the FTC has already sought to slow its review process and give itself more time to parse these deals. The FTC has suspended its previous practice of approving some deals before the end of the typical 30-day waiting period and withdrew guidance on mergers of companies in separate lines of business. Along with the Justice Department, it plans to revise merger guidelines, a change expected to make the process more stringent.
Click here to read the full Wall Street Journal article.